The Nationwide Funds Company of India (NPCI), the governing physique overseeing the nation’s broadly used Unified Funds Interface (UPI) cellular fee system, is about to interact with numerous fintech startups this month to develop a technique to handle the rising market dominance of PhonePe and Google Pay within the UPI ecosystem.
NPCI executives plan to fulfill with representatives from CRED, Flipkart, Fampay and Amazon amongst different gamers to debate their key initiatives aimed toward boosting UPI transactions on their respective apps and to know the help they require, folks aware of the matter advised TechCrunch.
UPI, constructed by a coalition of Indian banks, has grow to be the most well-liked approach Indians transact on-line, processing over 10 billion transactions month-to-month.
The brand new conferences are a part of an rising effort to handle issues raised by lawmakers and business gamers concerning the market share focus of Google Pay and PhonePe, which collectively account for almost 86% of UPI transactions by quantity, up from 82.5% on the finish of December. Walmart owns more than three-fourths of PhonePe.
Paytm, the third-largest UPI participant, has seen its market share decline to 9.1% by the tip of March, down from 13% on the finish of 2023, following a clampdown by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
An summary of India’s UPI ecosystem. (Picture: Macquarie)
The dialog follows the central financial institution expressing “displeasure” to the NPCI over the rising duopoly within the funds house, an individual aware of the matter mentioned. An NPCI spokesperson declined to remark.
In February, a parliamentary panel in India urged the federal government to support the growth of domestic fintech players that may supply options to the Walmart-backed PhonePe and Google Pay apps.
The NPCI has lengthy advocated for limiting the market share of particular person firms taking part within the UPI ecosystem to 30%. Nonetheless, it has extended the deadline for companies to adjust to this directive to the tip of December 2024. The group faces a novel problem in imposing this directive: It believes that it currently lacks a technical mechanism to do so, TechCrunch beforehand reported.
The RBI can also be weighing an incentive plan to create a extra favorable aggressive discipline for rising UPI gamers, one other particular person aware of the matter mentioned. Indian day by day Financial Instances individually reported Wednesday that the NPCI is encouraging fintech firms to supply incentives to their customers, selling using their respective apps for making UPI transactions.
